Kevin McCaffrey was born and raised in Weehawken, N.J. His education includes studies in English literature, library science, philosophy, theology, and art. After working as a reference librarian at the New York Public Library, he followed a calling to the Roman Catholic priesthood, during which he lived in Cincinnati, Washington D.C., and Jerusalem, where he worked for nine years as librarian of the École biblique et archéologique française, during which he traveled extensively. While living in Jerusalem, he found a passion for art, and so left behind the religious life to pursue his artistic calling. Moving back to the States, he studied drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York for six years. He currently lives in Weehawken and has recently earned an MFA in studio practice at Montclair State University.
Kevin has exhibited his work in venues in the New York area and elsewhere, including Pierogi Gallery; Magnan Metz Gallery; Kunstverein Tiergarten Galerie, Berlin; and Drawing Rooms, Jersey City. As an MFA student, his work was favorably critiqued by faculty and visiting artists and critics, including James Siena, Sarah Schmerler, and Eleanor Heartney. A number of his drawings are on view in the flat files of Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn. Awards have included a public service commendation from the U.S. Coast Guard Artists Program. He has works in private collections, including ones in Milan, Brussels, Paris, Toronto, and New York.
Statement:
My art seeks to embody, in a quasi-abstract manner, archetypal forms and contents from the collective unconscious as they emerge and manifest themselves to my conscious mind. There is a collaboration between my consciousness, my unconscious, and the energies found in the synchronicities of a wiggling pen on paper, or a brew of viscous, flowing pigments and media as they spread, break apart, mix, and wander across an arena of wooden frame and board. My interest in the thought of Carl Jung and my art practice existed side by side for a long time, but recently, they have come together in a very dynamic way, inspired as well by the meaningful randomness of the I Ching. For the viewer, I extend an invitation to find recognizable, naturalistic forms in the complex semi-randomness of my works. In this way, my works are rather like Rorschach tests, a lively interplay between the work and the viewer’s psyche. These works thus act as analogs for the symbolic presentation of archetypes to human consciousness as they emerge from the hidden regions of our psyche, and even beyond the psyche, beyond time and space. This interplay is a quest for an answer to the question: How do you make the invisible visible? My work generally is always a work in progress, as there is finitude in nothing, infinity in everything.